State Tax Chief Updates CPAs
E-filing Up, Other Initiatives Underway
By Simon Eskow

The New York State Department of Taxation and Finance saw a significant increase in e-filing over last year, among other significant developments, the head of the department said during the Foundation for Accounting Education’s Small Business Taxation Conference.

This year, 28 percent of all returns were filed electronically, Andrew Eristoff, commissioner of taxation and finance, said during his June 10 luncheon presentation. That represented an increase of 15 percent over last year.

Eristoff presides over the third-largest revenue collector in the U.S., after the Internal Revenue Service and the state of California. The department takes in about $44 billion a year and employs 4,700 people, giving the organization the potential for being a “faceless, heartless” machine, as Eristoff put it.

“But that’s why I’m here,” he said.

Faceless and heartless or not, as one of the largest revenue collectors in the country, the department has taken the lead on efforts to crack down on tax shelters, share information with the IRS about small to medium-sized businesses, overhaul cross-border state sales taxes collection from remote vendors through the National Streamlined Sales Tax Project, and develop a tax warrant database that practitioners can view on the department’s website.

At least one effort—the implementation of Line 56—has shown significant compliance over the national average. Eristoff said that the state estimated a 4 percent compliance with the sale tax reporting requirement, compared to the 2 percent average among all the states with similar provisions.

Eristoff spoke before a crowd of about 160 practitioners at the all-day event at the Mariott Marquis in New York City. Other sessions included presentations on New York City and state tax developments; S corporations and LLC updates; and preserving wealth with different estate planning techniques

The NYSSCPA’s New York, Multistate and Local Taxation Committee, chaired by Steven Eller, sponsored the conference. Stewart Buxbaum and Paul Dailey cochaired the event.